A tennis coach is alleged to have stolen thousands of pounds from parents and staff in Dulwich Park, and fled to sunny Spain.
The man was a franchisee of Teddy Tennis, an international company, which teaches tennis to toddlers aged between two and five.
Starting in the spring of 2021, the man is believed to have asked parents to transfer money for their child’s tennis lessons directly into his bank account – bypassing Teddy Tennis’s rules – and withheld the wages of other staff who were working under him. He had been giving tennis lessons at Dulwich Park since 2020.
Parents and staff say they were dismayed when in September last year the coach did not show up to work one day and stopped answering their flurry of calls. Parents and the company owner of Teddy Tennis told the News they had not seen him since.
It has been alleged by the man’s colleagues that he went to Spain. He is thought to have made off with thousands of pounds from parents and other members of staff.
Victoria Lazariuk, whose two and four year old children were having classes with Teddy Tennis, handed over more than £600 to the man. She says she is one of the ten “not very happy” parents and claims there are many others that no-one knows about. “We were totally taken for a ride,” she said.
The £600 has not been returned to Victoria, despite her complaints, with Teddy Tennis claiming it “cannot help” parents who did not pay through the official website as it cannot be determined how much they are owed.
“It is disturbing that Teddy Tennis hasn’t sorted out the mess their coach made,” says Victoria. “It is clear it is all about money for them.”
Victoria claimed the incident raised wider concerns about how Teddy Tennis vets and oversees its coaches.
“You trust the coaches that are affiliated with this company [and] you trust that processes are in place to stop stuff like this from happening. Clearly this is not the case at Teddy Tennis,” she alleged.
Following this incident, Teddy Tennis founder Stephen Bean said the company would be “more diligent” with credit checks of its employees in the future and assured customers that all coaches met “stringent standards”, including criminal background checks.
Coach Roland who worked for the man at Teddy Tennis for nearly a year says he is owed more than £4,000 in unpaid wages. Despite receiving his earnings for spring, he began to get suspicious when his wages were not forthcoming in summer.
“I was basically fooled,” he says, “I was working like a dog for months, when I could have been with someone who would actually pay me.
“But I trusted the company, it was a reputable name, so I worked without wages, saying nothing.”
Roland claimed there were several other staff members who had not been paid large sums of money, yet they had “moved on” or were not coming forward because of the “stigma”.
Roland alleged that Teddy Tennis had denied liability for their franchisee’s behaviour and were not doing enough to support those affected.
“They should be more active in chasing [him]” said Roland. “Teddy Tennis is washing their hands of the problem.”
Roland wrote to MP Helen Hayes last year and filed a county court claim against the man, in a bid to get the £4,538 that is owed to him.
In response to these allegations, Teddy Tennis founder Stephen Bean said the company had closed down their operation as soon as they were made aware of the issue and refunded parents for any unpaid lessons.
“To show goodwill” to the parents who directly transferred money into the man’s bank account, Mr Bean said “if and when we restart in Dulwich Park, we will give parents credits for lessons.”
He cited the company’s 20 years of experience and that they had “never had a problem of this nature.”
“This is very much one off case,” Mr Bean added.
He said that “this particular person” had cost his company thousands of pounds through reimbursing parents who had paid the company directly, and lost business time.
“We are completely out of pocket on top of all this,” said Mr Bean. “It was a dark day for me when we found out.
“It was the worst thing that could have happened to us,” he added.
However, he said they would “love to restart” their operations in Dulwich in the near future.
“We would love to hear from anyone who may be interested in running Teddy Tennis in Southwark or just becoming a Teddy Tennis coach,” he said.
“The ideal candidate would be either a sports coach, early years professional, sporty mums wanting to return to work or someone just wanting to do something different.”